There already were several articles about simulated Mars flights under www.space.com but the reccent edition of the german journal Wirtschaftswoche is reporting interesting details.

Russian scientists will do asimulation of a flight to Mars in 2007 with six volunteers. They will live in a narrow dummy-space vehicle for 520 days at the Moscow Institute for medical and biological research..

The participants will eat fodd for astronauts exclusively and breath refurbished air. The only way to contact mission control is e-mail and thetransmission will be delayed according to the distnce to Earth achieved.

Over 70 applicants have submitted reuests to the Russian Academy of Sciencesâ€™ Biomedical Problems Institute since the end of July by volunteers willing to join the Mars- 500 experiment, Institute spokesman Mark Belakovsky told Interfax.